In this section:

No. 2 City for Women in TechKansas City is ranked No. 2 Best City for Women in Tech based on gender pay gap, income after housing cost, women as a percentage of the tech workforce, and four-year tech employment growth.SmartAsset, February 2018

Top City for Tech and EntrepreneurshipKC ranks alongside Silicon Valley as a top tech city in the U.S., with access to talent, capital investment and opportunity for growth were all factors in determining the top cities. Cushman & Wakefield, June 2017

No. 4 Best City for Startups in U.S.According to Entrepreneur Magazine, Kansas City ranks fourth among nine selected cities for startup companies. Within the last two years, 71 food-based startups alone have sprouted in the KC region. Entrepreneur, May 2017

With more than 25 years of experience, Jill leads the business development team.

KC Location Advantages

Abundant Workforce

KC is a strong market for talent, employing nearly 100,000 in technology. Computer and mathematics occupations are 41% more concentrated in KC than the national average. Additionally, in the past 10 years, the population of highly educated individuals in KC has grown at a rate three times higher than the overall population.

Foundational Education

Already, more than 30,000 high school students are engaged in STEM programming through Project Lead The Way (a third of the entire metro high school enrollment). Of the 41 districts in the region, 29 have formal accelerated programming in STEM courses, and many of those inform and credential students for education and career pathways after high school. In the last four years, they also increased the number of K-5 STEM students from 120 to 32,141 regionally, while certifying more than 400 K-12 teachers in engineering, computer science and biomedicine. Learn more about how KC is building STEM education.

Network Infrastructure

KC is the most connected region in the U.S. With over 5.5 million miles of fiber deployed, businesses and residents maintain a robust connectivity anywhere.

Workforce Pipeline

KC offers a deep pool of talent in tech, with 2,000 annually receiving bachelor’s degrees or higher in computer science fields from regional universities and colleges and the surrounding six states offering an additional 6,000 students. Non-traditional coding programs in the KC region also provide more talent bandwidth: Disruption Institute, Girl Develop It Kansas City, Girls Who Code KC, and Kansas City Coder Dojo. Training leader General Assembly is also running a pilot program in Kansas City, its smallest market ever. For more information visit the Education/Training Overview page.

Forward Thinking

KC is home of the Kauffman Foundation—the global leader for advancing entrepreneurship—in addition to being the first city in the U.S. to receive Google Fiber. In 2014, KC became a Cisco Smart + Connected City, making it more livable through intelligent infrastructure networking. Fast forward to 2018 and Amazon Web Services is leveraging this innovative and connected environment to build out its first AWS Smart Region in partnership with Xaqt, one of the startups that began its story in the KC Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. Discover more about entrepreneurship in Kansas City.

Operating Environment

Some of the most recognizable names in technology call KC home including Cboe Global Markets, Cerner, Data Systems International, DEG, EPIQ Systems, FanThreeSixty, Freightquote.com, Garmin, Honeywell, Intouch Solutions, MRIGlobal, Netsmart Technologies, Sprint, Stowers Institute for Medical Research, TEKsystems and VML. The common thread connecting each of these companies in KC has been the excellent value each derived from a talented and deep workforce along with diverse operating environments. Explore other technology companies with an existing presence in KC.

KC is where Amazon Web Services is leveraging this innovative and connected environment to build out its first AWS Smart Region in partnership with Xaqt, one of the startups that began its story in the KC Entrepreneurial Ecosystem.

KC is among the national leaders of the Digital Inclusion community. Our cities hosted the first national conference on the topic, and programs born in KC are now being replicated across the country. KC recognizes that no region can truly be “smart” unless its residents, despite zip code, race, age, income, or educational level, are able to reap the benefits of fiber connectivity and IoT.

KC is collaborative with many regional data sharing initiatives metro-wide focusing on infrastructure, human services, public safety, information technology and development. Though the metro shares two states, multiple countries and dozens of cities, KC connects their communications network regardless of jurisdiction—a rarity in many metro areas.

KC is asset rich with a large cybersecurity workforce and presence including one of the nation’s top fusion centers – the Kansas Intelligence Fusion Center, the "Intellectual Center of the Army” - Fort Leavenworth’s U.S. Army's Combined Arms Center and the FBI-Kansas City Division who investigates counterintelligence and cybercrime.

>97% of homes in the metro area can access fiber at their home

38,700 Fiber Route Mileage - most in the U.S.

1st Gigabit Region in the nation thanks to Google Fiber

Kansas City Latency to Major Markets

Currently KC has digital partnerships with Amazon Web Services, Cisco, Google Fiber, Sprint and Unite Private Networks. The accessibility to the internet exchange point at 1102 Grand—one of seven carrier hotels in the United States—along with all network carriers ensures minimal data latency and immediate access to corporate entities and customers around the world.